In the past, there have been many different types and kinds of devices for facilitating the aligning of vehicle wheels. For example, reference may be made to U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,337,581 and 3,488,857.
However, despite the heretofore known attempts to improve the wheel alignment techniques, such techniques have been awkward and time consuming, as well as less than entirely precise and accurate.
The commonly used techniques are particularly awkward, time consuming and inaccurate, where front-wheel drive, strut-mounted vehicles are concerned. In this regard, the currently used technique is to attach a camber gauge to the outside of the front wheel to be adjusted, and then the front wheels are turned outwardly to provide access to the strut assembly for adjustment purposes. Once an adjustment of the strut assembly is attempted, the wheels must be turned back to a parallel position to read the gauge to determine whether or not the camber is properly adjusted.
However, since the wheels are turned outwardly when the strut assembly is being adjusted, the camber adjustment can not be accurately and precisely made. Therefore, the process is repeated, and by trial and error, successive approximations are made until the desired camber alignment is achieved.
A toe adjustment is then attempted by replacing the camber gauge with a toe gauge. A similar awkward process must also be employed to accomplish the desired toe adjustment.
As an attempt to overcome some of these problems, the device shown U.S. Pat. No. 3,488,857 has been proposed to be used in place of the wheel to be aligned and to support the alignment guages. However, the device did not permit ready access to the strut assembly for adjustment purposes, and thus did not facilitate the alignment procedure to a sufficient extent. Moreover, the device is not suitable for the adjustment for all types of wheels, such as some modern wheels, not having eccentric adjustments.
Additionally, the patented device is pivotally mounted on a pair of legs to help accomplish the camber adjustment, but while the legs enable the pivotal movement to occur, the legs do not provide a suitable stable support surface for one-fourth the weight of a four-wheel vehicle, especially during the precise alignment operation.
Therefore, it would be highly desirable to have an apparatus and method for quickly and accurately aligning a strut-mounted front-wheel drive vehicle, without the need for such awkward and time consuming manipulations. In this regard, it would be very desirable to facilitate greatly the alignment process so that the alignment can be achieved in a fast and efficient manner, and yet the resulting alignment is highly accurate and precise.
The apparatus should provide ready access to the strut assembly for adjustment purposes. It should be capable of assisting the alignment of even the modern strut assemblies.
Such an apparatus should enable a camber adjustment to be made in a precise, stable manner, and yet the apparatus should readily and conveniently fit substantially all size vehicles.
It is also highly desirable to have such an apparatus which is adjustable to fit various different sizes of wheels for vehicles. Moreover, such an apparatus should be relatively inexpensive to manufacture.